-Think Outside the Box-

Dose New Zealand need a Free Economic Zone and what forum it would take, we all know New Zealand needs more productive investment, in housing supply, jobs, and we need some economic diversification away from our over reliance on the primary sectors such as beef and dairy. I think the Government and our parties on the left and right need to be a bit more proactive in this area.

Working on something big and well needed in New Zealand and looking for help in drafting policy and lobbing MP’s and NGO’s that well help giving food to charities easy and streamlining the process and liability for supermarkets and organizations.

Is the New Zealand Reserve Bank’s action to late to cool Auckland’s housing market, today Graeme Wheeler has announced new restrictions on Auckland’s booming housing market, these restrictions are targeted at investors meaning from October 1 the new loan-to-value ratio (LVR) will take effect meaning all residential property investors in Auckland Council area using banks loans will need at least 30 percent deposit.

Other policies taking effect on 1 October:

The Reserve Bank will Increase the existing speed limit for high LVR borrowing outside of Auckland from 10 to 15 percent, to reflect the more subdued housing market conditions outside of Auckland.

The Reserve Bank will Retain the existing 10 percent speed limit for loans to owner-occupiers in Auckland at LVRs of greater than 80 percent.

So what does this mean and can the Reserve Bank’s cool Auckland Housing market, well simply put no, normally it’s the role of Central Government that deals with housing policy and the Reserve Banks simply does not have the tools to cool the housing market, and these restrictions can be easily bypassed by investors. on The same day Graeme Wheeler announced these restrictions he agreed with MPs on Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee that these new restrictions on property investors could make it easier for foreigners to buy in Auckland.

These restrictions would not affect cash buyers and most current and future investors will simply pass the cost on the already expensive Auckland rental market, driving up the cost of rents on good hard working kiwis family. So in my opinion these restrictions will end up doing more harm then good for first home buyers and renters this is why.

First of all most investors are not bad infarct right now they are on of the few groups building houses right now in Auckland, it’s the property speculation that needs to be targeted maybe a Property Speculation Tax looking at capital gains. but this needs to be enforced by Central Government not the Reserve Bank.

Most investors and Speculators will simply pass the extra cost of these restrictions on to renters or their asking price hurting kiwi family trying to save for their first home and driving up prices these restrictions have the real impact of increasing your rent and driving up house prices,

Secondly today announcements does not take into count Auckland housing supply and until Central Government not the Reserve Bank takes this into account there will be no chance of cooling the housing market. We need real action from Central Government the facts are that Auckland needs 30,000 new homes built yesterday and every year the number of homes that need to be built increases by over 10,000 homes just to keep up. Now I know the Central Government will say they are doing this right with their new housing accords and it’s Auckland Council’s fault for putting a halt to this plan over transport funding issues, and anyone living in Auckland will tell you that transport needs funding and this cannot be done by rates increases alone explicitly when you take into account how much Auckland is spreading out.

But you only have to look at the fact that the average house in Auckland increased in price by $47,000 from January 2015 That’s nearly $900 per Day and house prices are up 60% from 2008 to know it’s their actions are not working, and right now Central Government and Auckland Council are not effectually dealing with the housing market just playing politics.

So what can be done in the area of housing supply first of all Central Government need to set up a commission looking in to the cost of building supplies this makes up around 50 percent of a build if we could bring down the cost of building supplies this will make a real impact of bring down the cost of buying and increase the effeteness of our building industry, meaning kiwi companies can take on bigger projects.

Secondly the Central Government needs to look at a mass building projects like what was done in the 50’s yes I know it is a massive investment on the Government’s part and will mean overseas borrowing but this needs to be done, and Central Government will be able to reclaim some of the cost by selling of some of these houses rent income, and capital gained. I am not saying that Central Government should give these houses away or even do these housing projects by them self. Central Government could even look at Private Public Partnerships (PPP) to help with the cost of building.

Other steps that need to be taken are around the loosening of red tape around RAM and the cutting of the Council Development tax this combined with Speculation Tax looking at capital gained is the only way we can hope to cool Auckland’s housing market and make it more affordable for kiwi families.

But until Central Government starts taking this issue seriously not only will this many kiwi families won’t be able to afford to buy their first home, they will continue to put New Zealand’s economic future at risk we just need to look back as recently as 2008 to see all the hallmarks of our so rock star economy turn from boom to the biggest bust we have ever seen. “12 Reasons Why New Zealand’s Economic Bubble Will End In Disaster” – Forbes -.

The blowback of Central Government not tackling this issue, is putting us all at risk because when the housing market bust and it will in the next three years. The first thing we will see is house prices collapse the building industry taking a big hit with unemployment in the sector and skilled labour heading overseas, Banks will increase their interest rates and some Banks may need to be bailed out if they are over invested in risk mortgagees at a great cost to the taxpayer. Affecting many in industry’s outside the building and Banking sectors and increasing public debt, which may result in Central Government cutbacks, unemployment, greater cost of living and long term recession.As you can see the cost of doing nothing is almost unthinkable, the Government needs to take ownership of this issue simply put the Reserve Bank is not designed and does not have the tools write and enforce our housing policy. this is the role or Central Government.

Right now there are many low-income kiwis that working on 100% commission jobs, these are often low paid commission jobs like selling Power, Sky TV door to door or those people you see collecting for charities and these hard working kiwis need a brake, right now these kiwis are being over taxed in some cases upwards of 35% often meaning they are earning less then minimum wage week after week.

meany of us will be saying this is just part of the game of sales and welcome to life and no one said it is supposed to be easy, yes that is right some weeks you could be earning $700 and some weeks only $200 and sometimes much less. Now this is not a attack on companies use 100% commission workers it is a good way company can start up and slowing take on waged workers. This is just a look a reality and a recommendation that the government can do to help thousands that work as commissions agents and businesses so let’s look at the facts.

Meany workers (IC) will work and do work for well below minimum wage the reality is if the Government lowers withholding tax this will help thousands of kiwi workers (IC) and businesses. Theses workers (IC) often have no safety net, no unions or help for the government.

This is a step the Government can take to help thousands of kiwis at little cost to the IRD. Let’s stop putting the ambulance at the bottom cliff and start helping people before they are forced in the the working poor.

I think today everyone will agree that we live in a post privacy age in this age billions use sites like Facebook, Twitter and freely giving information to these companies so they can make a profit and most of these post made on these social networking sites are open to the public. Just try randomly typing in your name in to Google and see what pop’s up, you will most likely see a history of your Facebook post YouTube likes and much more.

Just yesterday I typed my name in the Google “Balarama Lauder” I saw over ten pages about me Google even hinted the rest of my name I was not logged in to Google at this time and I was using a fresh web browser to get a fair result. I saw links to all my social networking sites comments I have made in the news awards I have received were I have lived even the darken photos from my college days it was scary.

Most of the information about me was post by me. This is information I willing give to the world but ever day billions of people give up the same information making this available to anyone, anywhere to do absolutely anything with.

At the same time we post billions of updates a day we see the government collect this information on mass to use in the fight against terror, as we are told but this information in the most cases are collected un-lawfully and without our knowledge. You hear our politicians say things like the law’s need to be updated to reflect the real saturation, we need to give up a little freedom for security this is the price we pay to live in the free world. But when the price we have to give up to protect freedom is our freedom what type of world do we live in, is one freedom grater then the other dose anybody even think the right to privacy is worth protecting anymore.

I don’t know about you but this makes me think, I don’t know what to think anymore. On one hand we ask our government for protection and freedom at the same time. I think it’s about time everyone of us that can ask this question needs too for the ones that cannot for those that do not have the freedom. because we all know this question is not about privacy its really about the type of world we want to live in, do we choose freedom or security because what we choose will be the example for the whole world.

I grate documentary about the income divide between the rich and poor in New Zealand and the true effects it’s having on our economy. How the growing poor effects all of us in New Zealand, we have to ask ourselves what type of kiwi’s do we want to be are we going to put money first or people. Everyone of us needs to take responsibility for our community, the time for making excuses and blame is over. Now we must see actions